|
| |
PRINT05
The Print05 convention was held at McCormick Place in
Chicago and
lasted six days. The exhibition floor held digital
printers and the exhibitors gave away every thing from gigantic posters
to ballpoint pens.
My publisher,
iUniverse, was contacted by Oce', a European (home
office is in the Netherlands) company that manufacturers digital
presses. They wanted Chicago authors to sign books
that were printed in the booth - literally print on demand. Doug
Cummings (www.dougmcummings.com)
and I signed books for six hours. We gave away about 300 books to people
from all over the globe including England, Australia, India, Japan, Brazil,
Holland, Canada, Germany and many states, although because of Hurricane
Katrina, we did not meet many attendees from the Gulf States.
The folks from Oce' went out of their way to make us
comfortable and we greatly appreciate their kindness. We had lines in
front of us most of the time. Oce' s presentations were well-attended
and they told us that many people came into the booth because they
received a book and wanted to watch them be printed. Of course,
that was the goal and both Doug and I are delighted it worked out so
well.
Now for the print process itself.
|
 |
|
Enormous roles of paper
are mounted at one end of the printer. The rolls are 18.5 inches wide. The roll goes
first through a special vacuum that removes dust. (Digital
printers hate dust.) The page image is then printed in the same
manner as printing occurs with office or home laser printers - only
much, much faster. |
| |
|
|
 |
|
More complicated than changing
a roll of
paper towels. |
| |
|
|
 |
|
Books are printed, odd pages first, three copies across
-
meaning page 1 three times across, page 3 three times across, etc.
(Look closely by the palm and see three images across.)
The entire book is printed, odd pages, on a
continuous sheet. Then the paper is turned, vacuumed again, and
the even pages are printed.
This is the flip roller leading into the second
print phase. |
| |
|
|
 |
|
The last step of the print phase is
to slice and dice. A cutter slices the sheet into three columns,
separating the individual copies of the book. Another cut is made
at the book breaks. Then the books are pushed off the slicer and
stacked on a receiving platform. |
| |
|
|
 |
|
In the next step of the process,
individual books are hand-fed into a machine that contains a supply
of covers. The back of the book runs over a glue roller and then a
cover is folded around the pages and crimped.
Linda Mickey loads a copy of Defective Goods into
the binder. Keeping the pages in line takes great skill.
|
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
Lasers read the trim marks. The
white border on the cover will be removed. |
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
Finally, the book went into a trimmer. Start to finish -
about seven minutes.
Doug and Linda signed books that were literally hot off
the presses. |
| |
|
|
|
.jpg) |
|
Linda Mickey signs copies of
Defective Goods for booth visitors early in the day. After lunch,
the booth was full and there were lines in front of the signing desk.
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
Thank you to
iUniverse
and
Oce'
for
this wonderful opportunity.
|
|
